Locker Room
by silma
Summary: After a hard game of Quidditch, Harry meets Ron in the showers. What will happen when one of them confesses they've got a crush?
1. Chapter One

The minutes seemed to stretch, lengthen, as Harry sped towards the Snitch, his hair flying back from his face and his glasses slipping down his nose from sweat. He didn't notice anything around him; the other players were just blurs of color. All he could see was a tiny golden ball in front of him, a flash of silver-blond hair, belonging to Draco Malfoy, the Slytherin Keeper, beside him, and a very large gap between him and the grass of the Quidditch pitch. One more burst of speed, his fingers were mere itches away from the flaxen-winged orb.  
  
"Tweeeet!"  
  
A shrill whistle punctured Harrys concentration and he blinked, in that split-second the Snitch sped away from him at electric speed.  
  
"Damn!" he whispered, ignoring the cocky look on Malfoy's face, and then slowed his broom, turning himself around to see what the commotion was about.  
  
To his horror, his best friend, Ron Weasley, was lying a hundred feet below on the grassy pitch, his red hair fanned out around him and his face literally saturated with crimson.  
  
"Ron!" Harry kicked his broom into action but was prevented from tending to his friend by Angelina, Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, who had swept up beside him and put a hand firmly on his shoulder.  
  
"Harry, he's alright. It's just his nose, and some teeth, I think. He'll be back in a few minutes; he's just going to the hospital wing for a moment. Don't worry." She ordered, her face grim. "We're still going to win. Get the damn ball, Harry, and we'll win."  
  
Harry nodded and smiled, though still studying his friend as he and a teacher walked quickly towards the school.  
  
Harry knew that, even without Ron, his team could win this match. And if they did, there'd only be one more game standing in the way of the Quidditch Cup.  
  
The whistle blew again, and they were off.  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
"Good game, everyone!" Angelina grinned at her teammates, slapping Harry especially hard on the back when he walked past her towards the showers.  
  
"Nice one, Harry! The Triple Sloth Grip...new move, huh? Very nice. Oh, and like I told you, Ron's all right again. He's taking a shower. He didn't get to play, you were too bloody quick!"  
  
Harry smiled and thanked Angelina, then walked past the group of students into the shower room.  
  
Stripping off his sweat-stained, grimy Quidditch robes, he dumped them in a pile next to his locker and headed to a shower, his eyes on the dark green tile beneath his feet.  
  
The sound of the water forcefully hitting the floor, along with his thoughts, left Harry in a state of deafness, vaguely noticing people walking past him but not fully acknowledging who they were.  
  
As he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to work the dust from his scalp, he again envisioned Ron's bloody face and shuddered. He knew his friend had been hurt worse, but seeing him like that, covered in his own blood, had frightened Harry. Since last year, when Voldemort had indeed returned, Harry had been especially protective of his friends.  
  
Humming tunelessly, Harry closed his eyes and let the warm water saturate him. It was only when her heard a voice calling his name that he opened his eyes.  
  
"Hey, Ron!" he exclaimed, turning towards his friend. "Alright?"  
  
Ron blushed as he too got under a stream of water and started lathering up his hair. "Yeah, I am, but it was bloody stupid of me to do what I did. I mean, I flew right in front of the Slytherin Beater! Stupid of me," he repeated, then grinned and seemed to forget his own mistakes.  
  
"I heard you did great, Harry! A Triple Sloth Roll....that's amazing!"  
  
Harry smiled in thanks, and then turned to shut his shower off. Reaching for a towel, he wrapped it around his waist and looked expectantly at Ron. "Done?" he asked.  
  
Ron nodded and too grabbed a snowy white towel, and the boys headed towards their lockers.  
  
Quickly rubbing his hair to dry it, Harry slipped on a pair of black boxers, black jeans, and a tight black t-shirt, then grabbed a small zippered cosmetic bag and headed towards the mirrors.  
  
Ron joined him momentarily, dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt he looked every bit the poster child for America..while in fact being British. Harry laughed and commented on the fact.  
  
Uncapping his eyeliner, Harry drew a thin line under his lower lashes, and then smudged it a bit with his pinky finger. Ron watched fixedly and then asked, timidly, "Want some help?"  
  
Harry was surprised yet pleased, and he gave his makeup over to Ron, who uncapped it and edged closer to Harry to apply the deep black kohl.  
  
Harry smiled at Ron's look of intense concentration; he had obviously never done this before but was trying very hard to succeed. "You're cute!" he said, laughingly, but the reaction Ron had to that comment was amazing.  
  
"What?" Ron gasped, dropping the eyeliner and stepping back, his eyes wide.  
  
"Sorry!" Harry apologized, instantly connecting the wide-eyed look Ron had on his face to the one he usually wore after someone had said something rude to him.  
  
"Shite, I'm sorry." Harry persisted. "I guess I'll just go..." Crouching down, he retrieved his eyeliner from under the sink, re-capped it, and stood up again.  
  
Ron was .. smiling? 


	2. Chapter Two

Harry's eyes went wide; when someone had insulted Ron and he started grinning...it was a bad sign. Best get out of the way before any curses happened. Zipping up his bag, he headed for his locker, but a hand on his arm stopped him. Turning, he was surprised to see Ron with the most content smile on his face, like someone had just told him he was Quidditch Captain plus he made perfect grades through the whole school year.  
  
"I don't mind."  
  
"What?" Harry nudged gently out of Ron's tight grip and stared. "You mean....you don't care..you're...what??" His eyes were squinted and his eyebrows formed one straight line, he hadn't known that one little phrase would have such an affect and would confuse him so utterly.  
  
Ron sighed, looking at the floor, a faint blush dusting his cheeks, almost matching his flaming red hair. "Is anyone in here?" he asked the floor, and Harry smiled.  
  
"I'll go see," and he quickly checked the whole locker room, knowing that something Ron was going to say was important and that he wanted no one, absolutely no one but Harry, to hear.  
  
Going back to the mirror, he found the seat empty, and looked for Ron at their lockers. He was getting his Quidditch robes together for the laundry, for some strange reason Harry couldn't figure out, he was folding them before throwing them in the huge canvas bin in which all the teams' clothes were in. Harry sat down beside him, confused but concerned, a faint smile on his lips  
  
Ron continued to stare at the floor but took a deep breath, making Harry a bit more nervous. Ron never sighed, even when they were up to their eyebrows in schoolwork. This was serious. Harry sat, waiting....  
  
"OK..Harry. Umm....this is, well, really weird to tell you. I hope you don't get offended or anything, I don't know if you were joking or anything when you said that, but please, try to understand OK? And just hear me out before you say anything."  
  
Ron looked up at Harry, who nodded, then, putting us head in his hands and speaking to the tiles of the floor, Ron spoke:  
  
"You know how I'm dating Hermione? Well....the thing is....she's not really my type, you know? I mean, we go out on walks and stuff, and all she talks about is school! O.W.L.'s this; house-elf right's that.it's stupid, really. We've never even...." Here Ron blushed more furiously than ever, "kissed or anything."  
  
"So Hermione and I have been dating.and I'm just bored out of my skull, you know, it's just a drag to be sitting by the lake listening to her recite Potions ingredients. I'm looking around, just watching the other couples by the pitch, and I realize one of them is. ..well..they're kinda..cute."  
  
A pause.  
  
"Then...oh bugger, Harry, I'm sorry...I realize it's a guy."  
  
Harry didn't move a muscle; he continued staring down at Ron.  
  
Massaging his head with his fingers, Ron lifts his head and says three words:  
  
"It was you."  
  
Another pause and it was like the Quidditch game that had been won nearly an hour ago, the minute seemed to stretch, neither friends seemed to move...Ron was experiencing the most uncomfortable 60-seconds of his life.  
  
Finally, Harry spoke.  
  
"O...K..." he slowly breathed in, and then out, quietly saying the words as though they might offend his best mate. "Ron....I...." he looked nervously at his friend, who was staring back, and whose eyes were so wide with nervousness and doubt that they seemed to almost pop out of his skull.  
  
Harry couldn't find the words. "Ron..."  
  
Ron was kissing him. His hand on the back of Harry's neck was almost painful, digging his fingernails into the soft skin, as if he had wanted to do this for a long time and had never had the courage to, like this- this - was the kiss to prove all that he had been feeling these few months. All his frustration, admiration, love went into that kiss.  
  
Harry didn't respond. In fact, he pulled back almost as soon as the contact had started.  
  
"I'm sorry, Ron. I was joking. Really. I was thinking, 'Wow, Ron looks like he's done this before, it's so funny to watch!' It was just a random outburst, I'm sorry, I really am, I love you as a friend, Ron, but I don't..." Harry grabbed his bags and ran out of the room before he finished.  
  
Ron listened to the door creak slowly closed. He looked over to the mirror, to the showers, thinking: "Minutes ago Harry and I had been friends. It's ruined now."  
  
A solitary tear trickled down a freckled cheek. 


End file.
